“Feel the structure” MSA
Hello! Structural Engineering Fraternity
I am a Structural Engineer. My main work frame is to analyse & design simple to complex structure. I encourage many young civil engineers who have just passed out from college and want to make a career in Structural Engineering. Also, my blogs will work as a tonic to some civil engineers who are already in this field but feeling very low due to lack of knowledge and skills. My blogs are certainly going to bring not only their professional growth but also they will start loving this challenging field. It will indulge them to be more innovative.
I believe in 4’S&DE.
S= Stability, S= Strength, S=Stiffness, S=Sustainability, D= Durability & E= Economy
4’S&DE is my basic principle of analysing and designing any structure and same shall be followed by any Structural Engineers. I have seen many engineers who sometime think, if a structure is having sufficient strength against shear, moment and torsion instead of lacking in stiffness and durability, it looks fine to them. But i want to clarify one vital point, without having proper knowledge of deflection check(Based on Stiffness),Durability Check(Based on proper grade of material selection, life time exposure of structure to environment) and Economy (Based on client’s budget) no Structural Engineer is going to be very successful in their field.
My friends, if you want to make a career as a RCC Designer, then it is very important for you to understand deeply about concrete technology. Until & unless ,you are able to understand the chemical reaction tacking place in concrete and adherence it’s hydration product to different deleterious gases and chemicals in the environment, you will not be able to judge which materials like PPC or OPC or sulphate resisting cement is most suitable as far as durability is concern. You will be astonished by knowing the fact, sulphate reacts with the C-H-S gel(hydration product of cement) and concrete gets expanded by 300% by volume. You can feel now to what extent it can damage concrete by developing cracks and it further give path to ingress other deleterious chemicals like chloride to reach reinforcement. Also we should have knowledge about high performance concrete like high flow concrete & self compacting concrete where there is a congestion of reinforcement to avoid honey combing.
And last one is economy. It requires rigorous analysis or you can say this is the most tedious part. In order to design building under the specified budget, we require lot of reiteration process giving optimum member size fulfilling 4’SD.
My main area of blog writing is to cover 4’SDE. Time to time, I will share excel sheets that will help not only freshers but also practising engineers. Also, I will regularly update you with some hand calculation for the analysis and designing of simple frame and structural elements to bring you all to the basic. Please keep in mind, in fast pace of working environment, we are forgetting our basics and it is becoming very disastrous for all of us. Above all, I believe in sharing of knowledge and skills. What is the use if somebody is having huge knowledge and skills & carrying all these to grave. I think, noting at all. I have realised this now and understood the importance of sharing. So, hope somebody will get benefit from my sharing. Also believe, even if a single person is able to uplift his/her career, then my blog writing will be successful.
Most importantly, even a practising structural engineers will find something very new and innovative in my blog.
Last but not the least, I will request you all who reads my blog to give their valuable observations/suggestions to improve it’s content.
Thanks
Mohammad Sohel Akhtar(MSA)
(Structural Engineer)
Excellent Blog.
I am working in MAHSR, staying in Delhi. We should meet, when you have time.